The summer house, as they called it | 1 |
was, when we found it | 2 |
something of a disappointment. | 3 |
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Neither large nor small, no-one lived | 4 |
in its square, empty rooms. A friend | 5 |
of the family met us by the wooden gate | 6 |
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to show us round, to translate. She recalled | 7 |
playing in the garden - most especially | 8 |
how my now foolish, fretful eccentric aunt | 9 |
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had been the most beautiful, dimpled, sunny | 10 |
smiling child that she had ever seen. | 11 |
'That is where they put her swing'. I stared | 12 |
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at an unyielding tangle of trees and bushes, | 13 |
all unkempt, unable quite to comprehend. | 14 |
'They're still here,' she said. | 15 |
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'Those trees were named for them | 16 |
and there was one for me.' I saw | 17 |
apple, pear, wild plum, almond, still bearing fruit | 18 |
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in this late season, wearing their best clothes, | 19 |
remembering games of hide and seek, | 20 |
treasure hunts and blind man's buff and then | 21 |
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I realised how wise my grandmother had been | 22 |
to plant this flowering orchard | 23 |
for she had known that I would seek it out | 24 |
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one day, Tentatively I touched smooth | 25 |
sunburned bark of an apple bough, | 26 |
took fruit it proffered. The texture | 27 |
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felt like the smooth skin of a well - loved hand. | 28 |
I stood among the trees, surrounded | 29 |
by the spirits of my aunts. | 30 |